Land of the Dead (2005) (1 Viewer)

[Joe Karlosi]

If Romero had intended each movie to be a DIRECT sequel taking place in the 60s, he wouldn't have introduced new characters in each new film.

Not necessarily, IMO. I've always figured each film is about another group of different survivors getting along as best they can in another area. That's one of the beauties of being able to make countless sequels; there can always be another pocket of people surviving someplace else.

 

[todd s]

I just watched that feature on the 'Dawn' remake dvd called 'Special Report: Zombie Invasion', it's a faux news broadcast special that's just great for showing to your high friend just to fuck with his head by telling him it's a real news broadcast.

John, I have never seen it. Can you describe what is said? Also, how long is it? Does it describe anything more than was shown in the beginning of the movie?
Thanks!
ps-Just say no! to intelligent, gun-toting, hand-holding zombies.

 

[Colton]

I wished the Special Report was more professional looking - like in the beginning credits from the movie. Also, I wanted more footage of the devestation from what was happening in other areas.

What needs to happen is for someone to make a television series featuring a group of survivors that struggle to stay alive while they move from one location to the next. Each episode would be in a different place and how they fight to stay alive. Of course, alot of them will die along the way, but you'll want to know who survives at the session finale. Also, I wouldn't care if the zombies were fast or slow - just give us a nail-biting action/drama tv series. This NEEDS to happen!!!

- Colton

 

[todd s]

I wished the Special Report was more professional looking - like in the beginning credits from the movie. Also, I wanted more footage of the devestation from what was happening in other areas.

What needs to happen is for someone to make a television series featuring a group of survivors that struggle to stay alive while they move from one location to the next. Each episode would be in a different place and how they fight to stay alive. Of course, alot of them will die along the way, but you'll want to know who survives at the session finale. Also, I wouldn't care if the zombies were fast or slow - just give us a nail-biting action/drama tv series. This NEEDS to happen!!!

I agree with the first paragraph. And with you tv show suggestion. HBO should get the rights to the comic "The Walking Dead" and base a show on that.

 

[Damin J Toell]

Do you mean two years to take us from NIGHT through LAND? If so, then it's REALLY hard to take them seriously! I mean, jeez - what's the point even, then?

In Dream of the Dead, the short Land documentary that Roy Frumkes shot and that has been airing on IFC recently, they focus on putting Tom Savini in makeup to reprise his Dawn role. They discuss the fact that they are trying to make Savini look as if a "year and a half" has gone by since he became a zombie. Since it seems like Dawn took place within days of Night, and assuming a few months at most go by in Dawn, then Land can't really be set more than 2 years after Night. Got that?
As for what the point is, that's something you'll have to figure out for yourself. If these films don't offer you the type of storytelling you prefer, then they're just not for you.
DJ

 

[Michael Elliott]

A year and a half's worth? He didn't look quite THAT bad to me. One would think he'd be a skeleton after that long of a time period, assuming the zombies still continue to rot that is, i'm still not clear on that part.

Logically they wouldn't have much blood in them to splash all over the place after being shot. If we really want to break it down with the look, Fulci's ZOMBIE has the most realistic of what they should look like. I watched a show on the Discovery Channel where they showed a corpse and how it looked month to month after being dead. Within a week you'd look like Romero's zombies but after a year, more in the way of Fulci.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Todd,
as Colton has already alluded to, the documentary on the remake dvd is a collection of fake news broadcasts that act as if the zombie outbreak is actually occuring all over the world. With fake news anchors and phony hospital patients that have been attacked and even mock government agency addresses to the nation about the phenominon. It's all very cool stuff, but as Colton said it could be more realistic looking, though. It runs about 15 to 20 minutes.
Just FYI, there is also a great documentary on the disc that chronicles Andy's last days, as if he were keeping a video diary of what was happening both outside his gunstore and with himself trapped inside. Most interesting thing on that one, is that we get to see the CB conversation with Ving Rhames from Andy's end and see things we only heard going on in the film itself.

 

[todd s]

Thanks John. I wasn't going to p/u the movie..since it has been airing on the pay channels constantly. But, I saw it used cheap at Ballbuster. So I might pick it up.

 

[Damin J Toell]

Logically they wouldn't have much blood in them to splash all over the place after being shot. If we really want to break it down with the look, Fulci's ZOMBIE has the most realistic of what they should look like.

Except that those zombies (at least, the ones that rose from the graves) were supposed to have been centuries old...

DJ

 

[Joe Karlosi]

Since it seems like Dawn took place within days of Night, and assuming a few months at most go by in Dawn, then Land can't really be set more than 2 years after Night. Got that?

One thing I get is that a 30-ish guy who dies early in LAND wears a tag saying his date of birth is 1972!
Explain that! Seems to me, Romero doesn't care.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

No problem, Todd. Also, if it's the director's cut you saw used, there are thing's on it that are not on the theatrical version, three bonus documentaries...
Splitting Headache: Anatomy of Exploding Heads
Attack of the Living Dead
And...
Raising the Dead

Colton,
I love that idea, dude! A living dead series, I can't believe that hasn't been tried before!

 

[Damin J Toell]

Seems to me, Romero doesn't care.

He cares, just not about what you care about. You care about something he obviously deems to be irrelevant to his films. Like I said, if these films don't offer you the type of storytelling you prefer, then they're just not for you. There's nothing really more to say about it.

DJ

 

[Alex Spindler]

Seems to me, Romero doesn't care.

Romero cares that the audience identifies that the zombie attack is happening in their town and in their time. If land takes place in the 60's and 70's, then you're not going to identify with it any more personally than you'd identify with the personal sensibilities of the '50s era detectives in LA Confidential. They are very much a product of their time, and Kaufman and Cholo are very much the product of the '80s and '90s.

I'm sorry that you can't look past the choice to not make any one of the Dead films occur with time consistency. The films are built around the mindset of their times. It appears to sink the film for you in a way that doesn't sink Dawn or Day, so why do you care to dig at it so much. It's no more a flaw than expecting to make a movie displaying shopping mall culture and consumerism set in 1968, or a Batman origin story without everyone driving Studebakers. The conceit of all of the Dead films is that it's happening to you. That's what makes them 'work' for me.

 

[Joe Karlosi]

Like I said, if these films don't offer you the type of storytelling you prefer, then they're just not for you.

Like I said, the first three work fine for me in my way of a timeline. It's only the new film that's botched in my view. I have enjoyed NIGHT, DAWN and DAY (and especially NIGHT - the greatest of them all, before there ever WAS any need for trying to figure anything out!) I think I'll continue to enjoy them, and hopefully even LAND a bit more next time.

 

[Joe Karlosi]

If land takes place in the 60's and 70's, then you're not going to identify with it any

I don't know why I'm not understood on this, but I've not once thought that LAND takes place in the 60s or 70s, nor do I feel it should. It takes place now, only that 2005 wouldn't look like this.

 

[Damin J Toell]

Like I said, the first three work fine for me in my way of a timeline. It's only the new film that's botched in my view.

Yes, and as we've already determined, this is a personal issue for you, not something inherent in the films. Land does nothing that Dawn and Day didn't already do with regard to the timeline. You're the one deciding that there's something different. You decided you can ignore the "blunder" of a shopping mall appearing in the 60s, but not cell phones. You're picking and choosing based on no reason other than whatever you happen to like or dislike.
We're really going around in circles here.
DJ

 

[Joe Karlosi]

We're really going around in circles here.

Sounds like the Romero films.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I'm happy Romero makes horror flicks for adults and not teens.

Where did you get that idea from, Michael? There were plenty of teens in the audience when I saw the film last week. The presance of a social commentary does not automatically exclude teens from these films.
Teenagers love zombie films, fast, slow, commentary or not, they love them and will continue to see them. I hate it when people write off the remake as merely being made for the teenage MTV crowd crap, it isn't. All of the same elements are in both film's, including commentary...
In todays society people seem to look upon celebrities with a certain amount of contempt, they are worshipped where ever they go and they have everything that we'll never have. Now, the celebrity skeet shooting scene in the remake reflects this ideal beautifully IMO and turns it humorously on it's head.
Also, we have the scene where the girl unwisly risks her life and the lives of others to rescue a dog, that reflects misplaced priorities in todays world. The sad fact is that many people don't think twice about a person getting killed but will do anything to save a dog or a cat.
This isn't from me, folks, Snyder deliberatly put these in for those purposes, he said it, so his film is not as one dimensional as most think it is.
I think i've talked about the remake enough in this thread, this is afterall the Land of the Dead thread. Unless of course it's changed to the Official Zombie Films thread.

 

[Joe Karlosi]

Teenagers love zombie films, fast, slow, commentary or not, they love them and will continue to see them. I hate it when people write off the remake as merely being made for the teenage MTV crowd crap, it isn't.

I'd agree, as I generally don't care for the sped up/dumbing down of films to cater to the "MTV Crowd". But I also liked 2004's INVASION OF THE ZOMBIES (my title for the film that is more commonly known as the "Dawn of the Dead Remake"). It was a "good zombie film" with a new approach on the old tired "slow zombie" theme, and as a change of pace it worked for me. It's pretty scary, the idea of having speedy flesh-eaters hot on your trail. As for the complaint that "dead corpses couldn't do that", I can suspend disbelief that some sort of unknown plague could do things we couldn't understand. Cell phones in a 2005 world that ended decades ago? No. Zombies living and acting unlikely due to some unnatural disease or plague? Absolutely.
I'm not necessarily speaking about the people here at HTF, but elsewhere I've seen Romeroheads spitting on the 2004 DAWN "remake", and then praising LAND. I wasn't surprised by either reaction when these fans saw either film, frankly.

 

[Alex Spindler]

Sounds like the Romero films.

I've decided that it's not worth discussing this any more. Enjoy not liking the film for your own reasons.